The Social Side Of Edison -4

The Social Side Of Edison -4

"Pasteur invited me to come down to the Institute, and I went and had quite a chat with

him. I saw a large number of persons being inoculated, and also the whole modus

operandi, which was very interesting. I saw one beautiful boy about ten, the son of an

English lord. His father was with him. He had been bitten in the face, and was taking the

treatment. I said to Pasteur, `Will he live?' `No,' said he, `the boy will be dead in six days.

He was bitten too near the top of the spinal column, and came too late!' "

Edison has no opinion to offer as an expert on art, but has his own standard of taste: "Of

course I visited the Louvre and saw the Old Masters, which I could not enjoy. And I

attended the Luxembourg, with modern masters, which I enjoyed greatly. To my mind,

the Old Masters are not art, and I suspect that many others are of the same opinion; and

that their value is in their scarcity and in the variety of men with lots of money."

Somewhat akin to this is a shrewd comment on one feature of the Exposition: "I spent

several days in the Exposition at Paris. I remember going to the exhibit of the Kimberley

diamond mines, and they kindly permitted me to take diamonds from some of the blue

earth which they were washing by machinery to exhibit the mine operations. I found

several beautiful diamonds, but they seemed a little light weight to me when I was

picking them out. They were diamonds for exhibition purposes --probably glass."

This did not altogether complete the European trip of 1889, for Edison wished to see

Helmholtz. "After leaving Paris we went to Berlin. The French papers then came out and

attacked me because I went to Germany; and said I was now going over to the enemy. I

visited all the things of interest in Berlin; and then on my way home I went with

Helmholtz and Siemens in a private compartment to the meeting of the German

Association of Science at Heidelberg, and spent two days there. When I started from

Berlin on the trip, I began to tell American stories. Siemens was very fond of these stories

and would laugh immensely at them, and could see the points and the humor, by his

imagination; but Helmholtz could not see one of them. Siemens would quickly, in

German, explain the point, but Helmholtz could not see it, although he understood

English, which Siemens could speak. Still the explanations were made in German. I

always wished I could have understood Siemens's explanations of the points of those

stories. At Heidelberg, my assistant, Mr. Wangemann, an accomplished German-

American, showed the phonograph before the Association."

Then came the trip from the Continent to England, of which this will certainly pass as a

graphic picture: "When I crossed over to England I had heard a good deal about the

terrors of the English Channel as regards seasickness. I had been over the ocean three

times and did not know what seasickness was, so far as I was concerned myself. I was

told that while a man might not get seasick on the ocean, if he met a good storm on the

Channel it would do for him. When we arrived at Calais to cross over, everybody made

for the restaurant. I did not care about eating, and did not go to the restaurant, but my

family did. I walked out and tried to find the boat. Going along the dock I saw two small

smokestacks sticking up, and looking down saw a little boat. `Where is the steamer that

goes across the Channel?' `This is the boat.' There had been a storm in the North Sea that

had carried away some of the boats on the German steamer, and it certainly looked awful

tough outside. I said to the man: `Will that boat live in that sea?' `Oh yes,' he said, `but

we've had a bad storm.' So I made up my mind that perhaps I would get sick this time.

The managing director of the English railroad owning this line was Forbes, who heard I

was coming over, and placed the private saloon at my disposal. The moment my family

got in the room with the French lady's maid and the rest, they commenced to get sick, so I

felt pretty sure I was in for it. We started out of the little inlet and got into the Channel,

and that boat went in seventeen directions simultaneously. I waited awhile to see what

was going to occur, and then went into the smoking-compartment. Nobody was there.

By-and-by the fun began. Sounds of all kinds and varieties were heard in every direction.

They were all sick. There must have been 100 people aboard. I didn't see a single

exception except the waiters and myself. I asked one of the waiters concerning the boat

itself, and was taken to see the engineer, and went down to look at the engines, and saw

the captain. But I kept mostly in the smoking-room. I was smoking a big cigar, and when

a man looked in I would give a big puff, and every time they saw that they would go

away and begin again. The English Channel is a holy terror, all right, but it didn't affect

me. I must be out of balance."